The Wild Swans At Coole
by Lothiriel84
Summary: When she was a little girl she loved to go down by the pond and watch the swans as they drifted on the still water – mysterious, beautiful creatures that she could never touch. - A companion piece to When You Are Old (And Grey And Full Of Sleep) and The Lake Isle Of Innisfree. The title is a reference to the namesake poem by William Butler Yeats. Spoilers up to 3x03.


When she was a little girl she loved to go down by the pond and watch the swans as they drifted on the still water – mysterious, beautiful creatures that she could never touch.

While she herself felt more like the ugly duckling of the fairy tale, except that she never grew into a handsome bird. At thirty-one she was still the awkward, clumsy, nondescript girl that cut up bodies for a living, and very few people ever bothered to look twice at her.

She knew right from the start that her crush on Sherlock Holmes was completely hopeless. He was the swan, his elegant wings spread out in flight; he barely noticed the flightless birds that lurked on the ground. So she kept watching him from a distance, hoping against hope that someday he would actually see her.

As much as it pained her to admit it, she envied John sometimes. The good doctor lived in the glow of Sherlock's brilliance, and the consulting detective basked in his best friend's adoring attitude.

Then came the Fall, and the two years' absence. She went on with her life, or so she thought – until Sherlock came back again, and the cracks in her engagement with Tom started to show.

Everything went spectacularly to hell when John found his friend in a drug den; over a relatively short period of time Sherlock got shot, almost bled himself to death, and killed a man in turn. Under such circumstances Molly had very little time to ponder over the breaking of her own engagement, let alone the gory details of the affair between Sherlock and Mary's bridesmaid that had been all over the news.

It was only when Sherlock was about to leave England that Moriarty appeared on every screen of the country, giving her the shock of her life. Her panic dissolved when she received a phone call from none less than Sherlock's brother, assuring her that she had nothing to fear whatsoever. Mycroft Holmes loved his brother more than either of them was willing to acknowledge, and there was no end to the lengths the man would go in order to protect his sibling.

xxx

There was something different about Sherlock when she met him again; he looked more thoughtful than he ordinary was, and yet unusually attentive at the same time.

They went out for dinner a couple of times, and they talked about cases and their mutual friends. He even told her about his fake engagement to Janine, how he still felt somewhat guilty about it all; that was probably the moment when she realized he was starting to grow up at last, much to her surprise.

Then one evening, out of the blue, he kissed her; that was when she got into a panic and bolted for the door. He wasn't supposed to overstep the boundaries of their friendship, and she wished she could blame it on the few glasses of wine he'd had over dinner.

A couple of days later he burst into the morgue, rambling about bees and cats of all things. It took her a while to figure out what he meant, and she felt a sudden rush of affection at his cluelessness when it came to handling emotions and sentiment. Only now she could see the ugly duckling that was hidden underneath his swan feathers – not a sociopath, but still a socially clumsy genius who secretly craved the company of other people.

Molly decided she could live with that.

xxx

Sherlock liked her. It was incredible and unforeseen, but it was so.

She didn't dare to put a label on their relationship yet, because Sherlock was still Sherlock and she wouldn't have it any other way. He asked for her help on some of his cases, and she tagged along when he went at John and Mary's for dinner; they spent many an evening discussing criminology, pathology, and chemistry, and were content.

When Sherlock eventually bought a cottage in the Sussex Downs he invited her over for the weekend; and while their relationship had been strictly platonic up to that moment, sharing a bed became a frequent occurrence thereafter. The cottage was their hideout, where they could just be themselves – making plans about the beehives and laughing at ridiculous big brothers and detective inspectors who were secretly pining for each other.

Janine came over for tea sometimes; she was on friendly terms with Sherlock now, and genuinely fond of Molly as well. She was the graceful swan that Molly would never be, but Sherlock didn't seem to mind at all.

It was Janine that first suggested a plausible reason for her queasiness, and as it turned out she was quite right too. Sherlock was completely unfazed by the news – as a matter of fact, he'd deduced it long before.

Whenever he had to go back to London he made sure that Janine stayed over, and only raised a sceptical eyebrow when Molly decided to acquire a cat as well. It was a ginger tabby that went by the name of Copper, whose temperament reminded her closely of Sherlock's.

John and Mary stood as godparents to Melissa when she was born, and Mycroft attended the ceremony along with Greg – lover by lover, like swans used to do.

That was when Molly finally remembered that The Ugly Duckling had a happy ending after all.


End file.
